Cake Race 2012

26 December 2012Joel B, Ellis '13

Following the tradition of many decades, members of the Brentwood’s College Rowing Club (BCRC) gathered in early December for the annual Cake Race. For those of you who don’t know what it is, the Cake Race is a 1500-meter competition on the Brentwood Regatta racecourse where eights full of rowers dressed in costumes can win either by finishing first or having the best costume.

A captain is assigned to each boat. He or she is in charge of managing his or her team and coming up with a costume concept. Theses teams are made up of a cross section of all four grades and both genders (national championship Grade 12s alongside Grade 9 novices) which makes for an interesting ride. The crew that wins the race is usual the one that can technically hold together the longest as a team.

As we gathered in our eleven teams inside the boathouse, we waited for the news: would we be racing on the water or on ergs due to foul water (nobody wanted to erg). Luckily for everyone, the weather calmed down enough for all the teams to launch and head to the start line.

It’s hard to describe the chaos of the start line; there were eleven boats full of mixed rowers who had never rowed together as a crew in that combination. In most races there are no more than six boats and crews train for months towards a single race. With eleven 60-foot long boats that never raced before all clad in full costumes, the cake race is definitely a sight to see and organize!

After the race, the rowers filled up the erg room awaiting the judges’ decisions. Rebekah P’s SS Bud Patel was the fastest crew on the water, in their octet (the sculling equivalent of an eight). They had pulled ahead early and held a solid length of open water on all the other crews. For costumes, the winners were Jeff B’s pirate crew, with second place going to Joel C’s crew of sled dogs and bronze to Nick R’s hockey team. Each winner was awarded Tim Horton’s gift cards so that they could treat themselves later in the week and even the crews that didn’t win still got a consolation prize: Mrs. Sage baked enough cupcakes for all 99 participants.

After all the chaos, fun, racing and cupcakes, it can be easy to forget that for an event as large as this to run well, huge amounts of effort must be put into it ahead of time. A big thank you to Mr. Amiel for making such a potentially chaotic event a little less crazy this year. Without him assigning the captains, sending out the information emails and holding important meetings, Cake Race 2012 would not have been the sweet success it was. He had the right recipe.

Joel B, Ellis ‘13

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